“My plea for clemency; Leonard Peltier” Leonard Peltier #89637-132 U.S. Penitentiary, Lewisburg P.O. Box 1000 Lewisburg, PA 17837 January 20, 2009 Re: Leonard Peltier; My plea for clemency To Whom It May Concern: What follows are the reasons why I believe I am entitled to serious consideration on my pending petition for executive clemency. Please forgive the length of this message, but it is important to provide as much information about my case as possible and the reasons why I should be set free.1 Although I am now approaching my thirty-fourth year in federal prison I am guilty of only being an Indian. That’s why I’m here.2 But I’ve never regretted that I was one of those who stood up and helped protect my people.3 And, I would like to say with all sincerity—and with no disrespect—that I don’t consider myself an American citizen.4 1) I was convicted in Federal Court in April 1977, and given two consecutive life sentences for the first-degree murder and aiding and abetting in the murder of FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams. During my trial the Government contended that on June 26, 1975, Agents Coler and Williams, who were in separate late-model Government sedans, followed a vehicle they believed contained a fugitive named Jimmy Eagle. Eagle and others were wanted at the time on charges of armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. The agents followed the vehicle onto the property of the Jumping Bull family on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Neither the FBI nor Agents Coler or Williams knew I was on the Reservation at the time.5 I had recently returned to Pine Ridge to join other members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) because of the turmoil caused by conflicts between AIM, 1 the Pine Ridge tribal government, full-bloods versus traditionals and the Government (FBI). 2) At that time, I knew there was an outstanding warrant for my arrest from Milwaukee, Wisconsin for an attempted murder charge involving two off-duty police officers. I had served five months in jail but had jumped bail and fled the State.6 I would like you to know I was later acquitted of those charges.7 3) The Government’s “facts” alleged that I had been driving a vehicle (a Chevrolet suburban with two young Indian passengers, Norman Charles and Joe Stuntz) and that we stopped at a distance and began firing at the agents while they were both in an open field about a hundred yards away, and that the agents began firing back to defend themselves. During the shooting, other AIM members from our camp in a nearby ravine also joined in and shot at the agents from another location.8 The shooting didn’t last long and Agent Coler’s right arm was nearly severed. Agent Williams was wounded three times. The witnesses testified that the three older Indians, Darrell Dean (Dino) Butler, Robert (Bob) Robideau and myself then went down to the wounded agents. The jurors saw many crime scene and autopsy photos showing that someone had shot Agent Coler in the head and then a second round blasted away his jaw, both at point- blank range.9 Agent Williams, they said, had a “defensive wound,” because he had raised his hand to protect himself or deflect the rifle muzzle pointed at him. His fingers were blown through his face and the back of his head.10 This was all highly prejudicial for the jury to see. 4) The Government claimed that the weapon used to kill the Agents was my Colt AR-15 (referred to as the “Wichita AR-15”) and supposedly linked to me because I was the only one among the AIM members with such a weapon. Extractor marks from this assault rifle, the Government said, were a match to a shell casing found in Agent Coler’s open trunk as well as 114 others.11 The Court of Appeals later claimed that “When all is said and done, however, a few simple but very important facts remain. The casing introduced into evidence had in fact been extracted from the Wichita AR-15. This point was not disputed…” and, “The trial witnesses unanimously testified that there was only one AR-15 in the compound prior to the murders, that this weapon was used exclusively by (me) and carried out by (me) after the murders.”12 The testimony the jury heard placing me at the murder scene was from young Indian witnesses who were threatened and coerced by the FBI. The three critical Government witnesses who placed me, Dino and Bob at the agent’s vehicles after the initial shooting had ended, said on cross-examination that they were threatened, intimidated, or physically abused in the initial stages of the investigation about their knowledge of the murders. “However, upon further questioning at (my) trial by the government attorney, they stated that the testimony they gave at the trial was the truth, as they best remembered.”13 2 Two other witnesses (who were called by my defense team to refute testimony against me and to prove they were induced by the FBI to make false statements), later “…testified outside the presence of the jury that after their testimony at trial, they had been threatened by (me) that if they did not return to the court and testify that their earlier testimony had been induced by FBI threats, their lives would be in danger.”14 I was fortunate the jury did not hear their later admissions as well. 5) To be honest, I can’t believe that the FBI intended the deaths of their own agents. Their sorry excuse has been that those two Agents blundered and trespassed onto the property that morning simply in order to arrest someone falsely accused of stealing a pair of used cowboy boots.15 They didn’t even have a warrant for his arrest—nor does it jibe with the fact that scores, even hundreds, of FBI Agents, federal marshals, BIA police, and GOONS16 were all lying in wait in the immediate vicinity. It seems they thought they’d barge in on that phony pretext, draw some show of resistance from our AIM spiritual camp, then pounce on the compound with massive force.17 Although that has been my contention since this all happened, not even my biographer, Peter Matthiessen (see below) believed it. He said “…they (the agents) heard a warning shot or came under fire; if there is another persuasive explanation of the location and position of their cars, I can’t find it.”18 But in any case, their agents were dead, we feared for our lives and fled the Reservation. 6) For anyone to be fully informed about my alleged crime there is one element surrounding the agents’ deaths that I need to explain. My biographer, Peter Matthiessen, wrote a national bestseller about my case and the FBI’s war on the American Indian Movement entitled In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. (I have of course adopted that phrase as my lifelong call to arms.) The book almost didn’t survive because after its release by Viking Press in 1983 Peter was sued by an FBI Agent and a former Governor of South Dakota for libel and it was tied up in the courts for eight years. We won, but I was “the main victim of these intimidation suits…and was deprived of (my) main organizing tool in (my) fight for justice.”19 Peter Matthiessen conducted hundreds of interviews and compiled extensive research to tell my complete story, and I have encouraged everyone to read this book and find the truth. Peter did touch on an important aspect of the killing of the agents which the prosecutors used against me during my trial concerning Jack Coler’s devastating arm wound. The Government said he had been at the back of his car when a bullet passed through the open trunk lid and nearly severed his right arm. He went down, was bleeding heavily and was probably going into shock and 3 unconsciousness.20 Ron Williams was the one using his radio21 to call for help and trying to explain where they were pinned down and being shot from, but he was also wounded three times and “…had thrown his gun down and stripped off his white shirt. Perhaps he waved it as a white flag of surrender; in any case, he apparently attempted to rig it as a tourniquet on the shattered arm of the downed Agent.”22 Peter’s kindest words for these two invaders that day were “In a few wild minutes, Coler had received that shocking wound, and Williams could not or would not desert him—the details, the degree of bravery, the precise order of events are lost.”23 After the initial shooting ended, the agents were then shot in the face with a high powered rifle. The jury accepted the Government’s tale that I did it. But, of course, I didn’t kill the agents so none of this is relevant. I was still wrongfully convicted because I was an Indian. Knowing I would be unjustly accused of the Agents’ deaths, I fled to Canada. 7) My two AIM co-defendants would be arrested separately in September; Dino Butler on the Rosebud Reservation (where the FBI located Agent Williams’s service revolver24), and Bob Robideau in Wichita when the station wagon he was driving caught fire and exploded. In that vehicle were Agent Coler’s rifle25 and the AR-15 the Government said belonged to me and that had been matched to shell casings at Jumping Bull.